Manitoba unis ponder gender-neutral washrooms

The University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg are struggling with ways to accommodate transgendered students who don’t feel comfortable using washrooms designated exclusively for men or women. Transgendered people, who don’t identify with their birth gender, often face harassment when using male- or female-only facilities.

On the one hand, U of W will soon present a proposal to the administration to create single-stall washrooms for use by transgendered students.

On the other hand, U of M proposes creating unisex washrooms equipped with more private stalls for use by all students, and changing the “men’s” and “women’s” washrooms into “male-identified” and “female-identified” facilities.

Victoria schools to be powered by crap

The municipal government of Victoria, B.C. is considering building a sewage treatment plant onsite at the University of Victoria. The plant would convert human waste into energy to provide light and heat for the university and the nearby Camosun College.

Currently, Victoria dumps 130 million litres of raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca each day. While some critics argue that a waste-reduction program is badly needed in the city, Kyle Artelle of Camosun Students for Environmental Awareness thinks the power generated by the plant would be making the best of a bad situation.

“We’d still be up shit creek,” he said, “but at least we’d have a paddle.”

CFS sees red over T-shirt

The Canadian Federation of Students, which has been running a campaign against sexual assault for the past 10 years under the slogan “No Means No,” has convinced clothing retailer Bluenotes to stop selling T-shirts that the Federation called offensive and dangerous. CFS VP Brent Farrington said that the T-shirts, which read “NO MEANS have aNOther drink,” encouraged the kind of attitude that leads to sexual assault and infringed on the copyrighted design of the original slogan. Bluenotes has offered to sell CFS anti-assault shirts in its stores and give a portion of the proceeds to women’s charities.

-Ben Spurr